16-Jun-2007 -- "Towards Zero" was the name of our project. We are Lina Faller, Marcel Mieth, Thomas Stüssi, and Susanne Weck, an artist group called FMSW, settled in Berlin, Germany. Since 2001 FMSW deals with positioning and the question: "where are we actually?", the GPS is one of our tools to approximate. "Towards Zero" was the idea of branding Point Zero to verify the GPS-System. In our luggage we carried a high vakuum, enclosed in a hollow steel ball. Branding zero with nothing as consequence of our studies. (more information about the concept will be published in a book 2008, further information about our work: www.fmsw.net)

We started on 11 May 2007. We embarked the Grande Argentina in Hamburg, which shipped us to Tema, Ghana. It was the idea about moving slowly towards zero. We had three weeks to observe the horizon and to concentrate on the project. After stops in Dakar, Cotonou and Lagos we entered Ghana on 1 June.

There we had to find a small but good and fast vessel which could bring us to point zero. That was not an easy affair, because good ships which are affordable are rare in West Africa. After a few days we checked out a vessel called "Tropic Sun", an oil rig supply vessel, which seemed to be the one and only. After times of hard negotiations about the price, especially about the bunker issue, we had a horrible long week of waiting. Then we started on 14 June.

At sunset of 16 June we reached the area of 0N 0E after times of heavy swells and some of us were not in good condition. The zodiac was prepared and we began, accompanied by Kosina Mensah, to navigate by GPS to point zero exactly. The "Tropic Sun" followed us.

The current let us drift and the waves were quite heavy, so we had a long time crossing from northwest to southeast and southwest to northeast and so on. After nearly 20 minutes crossing around point zero, we matched zero; the GPS showed N 00°000' W 00°000', it was 8:08h in the morning.

We plunged the high vacuum at this point. It sank quickly, to reach the ground it took almost 20 minutes (5000 m deep, the engineer who constructed the ball made the calculation). At the same time we scooped 25l gallons of zero water, which is now available as an edition. Besides that, we took a 360° panorama shot, to show the view from point zero. After that, we returned to the "Tropic Sun" and left home.